Atlantis in America

Atlantis in America
by Lewis Spence

originally published 1925

This book has been scanned as a special historical reprint project and no other formatting to the original text was attempted.

Contents:
Atlantis and Antillia
The Cromagnons of America
Quetzalcoatl the Atlantean
Atlantis in American Tradition
Atlantean Traditions in American Religion
Evidence from the Mummy
Evidence from Witchcraft
Ethnological Evidence
Evidence from Art & Architecture
Folk-Memories of an Atlantic Continent
Analogy of Lemuria
The Sargasso Sea
Chronological Table
Index

Excerpt:
Pages 81-82

THE ATLANTEAN TRADITION IN AMERICAN RELIGION

We have seen that the myths and traditions of America preserve a very definite memory of Atlantis and of the great upheavals which culminated in its destruction. What we must now ask is: do the religious ideas of America and the god-like figures round which they cluster show any resemblance to what we know of Atlantean religion or any connection with its tradition?

The principal mythological figures alluded to in Plato's story of Atlantis are Poseidon, Cleito and Atlas. As regards the Atlantean religion, Plato informs us that in the center of the city was a temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, surrounded by a golden enclosure. He also observes that a religion seems to have centred round the rite of bull sacrifice.

The figure of Poseidon is too well known to require much description. Among the Greeks he was the god of the sea, who lived in the depths of the ocean, and he had an added significance as lord of the earthquake and all subterranean disturbance. Do we encounter in the religions of America any divine figures approaching closely to this conception?

As has already been said, those ancient deities of the ocean, the Gucamatz, alluded to in Popol Vuh, closely resemble this marine and earthquake deity. In that work they are alluded to as "the old serpents covered with green and blue feathers (or scales) who live in the depths of the ocean." These are associated with Quetzalcoatl, whose parents they seem to have been. He was indeed one of the Gucamatz or marine deities, and was closely connected with water, and it was these Gucamatz or Old Ones who brought floods and disaster on the first men mentioned in the Popol Vuh.

Another Mexican god, Tlaloc, the god of water, closely resembles Poseidon. He appears to have a head evolved from that of a walrus, with large tusks, and an early sculpture shows, I think, the process of development from that form. He possessed, like Poseidon, both beneficent and terrible aspects, and was the striker and the slayer, as well as the god of all moisture and the sea. Sometimes he is depicted as a monstrous serpent or dragon, as in page 74 or the Maya Dresden Codex, vomiting forth water upon the earth. In an ancient hymn addressed to him, he is alluded to as having come out of "the Tlalocan, the blue house," that is the sea. According to Boturini, quoting Gemelli Carreri (tom. 6, p. 83), Tlaloc was the deity who at the behest of Tezcatlipoca raised the earth out of the waters of the universal flood, and who counsels men by his divine messages, written in the lightning and the thunderbolt, to live wisely and morally. He was also known as the Pearl Serpent, a name frequently given in mythology to the dragons which haunt the depths of the sea.